


Catch Up

by dovingbird



Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter/Funhaus RPF
Genre: M/M, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-15
Updated: 2016-12-15
Packaged: 2018-09-08 20:34:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8860051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dovingbird/pseuds/dovingbird
Summary: A filled commission. How To may have been over for a while now, but that's not gonna stop Adam from finally making a move on Joel.





	

Ever since How To stopped being a thing, it’s been a little harder than usual for Joel and Adam to spend time together. And that’s fine. That’s okay. Adam’s always known how Joel is. He’s a busy man with a busy schedule who forgets to eat because the stock market’s shifted even just a hair. And Adam, for his part, has like seventy cats and a passion for holing himself up and welding things together to make interesting helmets for cosplay for so long that he forgets how to interact with other humans properly. These things don’t exactly line up well with other schedules, and especially not with each other’s.  
  
But it’s okay. Normal’s boring, as far as Adam is concerned, and when he texts Joel things like ' _Hey asshole get coffee with me,'_ Joel’s still quick to reply something extremely friendly like ' _coffee'_ and meet him at Starbucks half an hour later.  
  
Is it silly for Adam to go out of his way to make sure his beard is combed out and his eyebrows are smooth and his hair is neatly groomed under his beanie? Maybe. Also might be silly for him to wears jeans that make his ass look good and a hoodie that’s just tight enough to make his shoulders look more tremendous as usual. But he knows what he’s about. It’s not subtle. But Adam’s never pretended to be subtle even once in his life.  
  
He already knows what Joel drinks, of course, so he grabs both their orders and then sets himself up at a little table by the window, where he can see Joel approaching. It doesn’t take long. Joel bowls through the crowd on the sidewalk, taller than most of them, wearing a hoodie that swallows him and jeans that have seen better days, head ducked, phone in his ungloved hand, and he appears to be scrolling madly. He bumps shoulders with someone and doesn’t even look up when they turn their head and say something to him as he retreats.  
  
Adam sets his chin in his palm and sighs.  
  
Joel misses the door but reaches for it anyway, dragging his hand over the glass near Adam’s face, and that’s the thing that makes Joel jump back with a mortified expression on his face. He stares at the handprint he left on the glass, curls his lip, then reaches into his pocket as he backs into the glass door.  
  
“Fucking disgusting,” Joel says as he approaches the table, pulling out a little travel sized container of wet wipes and furiously scrubbing his hand. “Do, do you know how many people touch that glass, Adam?”  
  
Adam sits taller and blinks at him. “What, this one?” he asks, reaching to just barely touch the surface with his finger.  
  
Joel stares at him in absolute horror. “Adam,” he chastises, “there’s, there’s workers here, t-they have to, they’re gonna have to clean your fat fingerprint off that!”  
  
“You know what they say about people with fat fingers and big hands,” Adam teases, wiggling his fingers at Joel.  
  
Joel scowls and begins rubbing Adam’s finger with his used wet wipe. “They say they’re fat.”  
  
Adam goes back to grinning at Joel and letting him handle him.  
  
By the time Joel finally finishes his cleaning, which involves him taking a napkin and scrubbing Adam’s fingerprint off the glass, he finally primly sips his coffee while looking at his phone again. “Have, have I mentioned we’re ruined?”  
  
“What, us personally?” Adam asks mildly. There’s no point in being alarmed at this stage of the conversation.  
  
“No, not, well. Well, maybe, but, no, Adam, look.” Joel holds up his phone, showing a chart that Adam can’t possibly identify. “You see?”  
  
“Is that about gold?” Adam asks as he tilts his head to the side.  
  
Joel squints at him before he huffs and puts his phone back down. “Unbelievable,” he mumbles, going back to his phone. “I, honestly, why, why do I even-”  
  
“Because I’m cute,” Adam says as he reaches across the table. “Yoink.”  
  
“Hey!” Joel reaches for his phone but Adam’s already put it in his pocket and gone back to sipping his coffee, eyes sparkling. “Adam, I need that!”  
  
“No you don’t,” Adam says. “You finished your commercial work for the week, you’re done filming your show, and nobody asks you to hang out anymore because you always turn them down. Trust me, Joel, you can stay away from your phone for ten minutes.”  
  
Joel visibly deflates in the chair and stares at Adam suspiciously over the rim of his coffee cup. He doesn’t even manage a sip before he’s already speaking again, the cup hanging dangerously in the air. “I-I could get an email, or Burnie could, what if we go bankrupt, Adam?”  
  
“Then we can finally be free of the tyranny,” Adam says dryly. “What are you really worried about, Joel? Waiting on a booty call?”  
  
“So many,” Joel says dryly, finally drinking his coffee again. “Yeah, people really wanna swipe right on the dude whose mattress is, is on the floor. This is good.”  
  
“Thanks,” Adam says with a grin. “I worked real hard on it. Stood in line for thirty seconds and everything.”  
  
“Amazing.” Joel’s fingers start fidgeting on the table. “Wh-why don’t I get my phone?”  
  
“’Cuz I missed you, Joel,” Adam says. He reaches out, his heart pounding in his chest, and catches Joel’s hand with his own. “A lot.”  
  
Joel doesn’t even hesitate. He slides his fingers free, then begins tapping the same rhythm on the back of Adam’s hand that he’d been drumming on the table. “That’s good,” Joel says absently, eyes on the window. “That’s, yeah.”  
  
Joel’s not a verbally demonstrative guy and the fact that Adam’s even gotten this close to him, hand under Joel’s, is huge. Things are going better than Adam thought they could. Maybe, maybe finally they can stop doing this little dance thing, can...can just get everything out in the open and…  
  
“Dog,” Joel says abruptly. He scoots away from the table an inch, hands pressing into the surface as he sits taller and squints into the distance behind Adam. “Adam, there’s, there’s a dog coming, it, oh my God, look.”  
  
“What?” Adam turns and cranes his neck. Yep, there’s a dog, all right, getting walked down the sidewalk. “Oh wow, yeah, you’re right.”  
  
“That is the best dog I have ever seen in my life,” Joel insists. He almost pushes his face against the window to watch it pass by and Adam gives an apologetic expression to the man walking it. “Do you think h-he’d let me take a picture?”  
  
“Of his dog?” Joel doesn’t respond and Adam reaches for his hand again. “Joel.”  
  
“What?” Joel asks.  
  
“I wanna ask you something, here, can you, uh. Will you look at me?”  
  
Joel sighs heavily, no doubt from being deprived of the dog, but he looks at Adam anyway. His expression is soft and loose, pleasantly neutral, and his eyes are bright and attentive, and his mouth is drawn into a thoughtful frown, and not for the first time Adam feels the overwhelming urge to kiss him.  
  
Hufflepuffs are babies, though, Adam knows that, and he tries to find the courage to actually say what he wants to say, what he’s wanted to say literally for years now. He tries to pretend that he’s not twenty years younger than Joel, that he’s got anywhere near the level of accomplishments that Joel has, that he’s interesting and successful and gorgeous and fascinating.  
  
None of that works, of course, so Adam settles for what he’s always done: he opens his big mouth and lets the first thing he thinks of pour out of his mouth. “Do you wanna get dinner?”  
  
Joel blinks. “Yeah, sure, where? There’s a-a new place at-”  
  
“No, I mean, like, yeah, dinner, but more than dinner. Like, uh.” Adam swallows. “Like a date.”  
  
Joel blinks a few more times. He squints at Adam for a long moment, and then his expression loosens again, his mouth spreading into a slow smile, dimples popping out on display. “You...dude, y-you’re serious?”  
  
Okay, so he fucked it up. Adam tries to commence backpedaling. “Absolutely not,” he says. “No way was I in any way serious, no, that’s-”  
  
“Adam,” Joel says. He turns his hand so their fingers lace on the surface of the table and Adam stares at their hands, his breath catching in his throat. “This, this _is_ a date.”  
  
“It is?” Adam asks distantly.  
  
“Yeah.” Joel laughs breathlessly. “I-I thought it was, I mean, we’ve, that’s, Adam, we’ve had a lot of dates, haven’t we? Like, a lot.”  
  
Every time they get coffee. Every time they get lunch. Every time they stand too long in the hallways talking so that people whine when they have to squeeze around them because they’re blocking the whole damn thing. Every time that Adam felt silly and dopey and warm and _hopeful_ and…  
  
“Am I right?” Joel asks, tilting his head to the side, his soft hair falling at a new angle. “Or a-am I totally off base, because-”  
  
“I want to kiss you,” Adam says quickly.  
  
Joel blinks again. “Okay,” he says. “The table is, Adam, you’re, it’s in the way, you-”  
  
The table scrapes across the floor as Adam leans over it quickly and catches Joel’s mouth with his own. The kiss is quick, messy, and at a weird angle, and all it tastes like it coffee, but Adam can still feel Joel’s shaky breath against his lips when he starts to pull back. Adam drops back into his seat and stares at Joel blankly, trying to figure out if he’s going to pass out just from getting to feel how, how soft Joel’s lips were, or-  
  
Joel grins even wider, eyes sparkling up a storm, and Adam eagerly runs his gaze all over Joel’s face to take him in and memorize him. “Incredible,” Joel says with another quiet chuckle. “Next y-you’re gonna ask me if, if I wanna be your boyfriend or-”  
  
“We’re _boyfriends?!_ ” Adam asks, voice cracking. “Are you serious?!”  
  
“Adam,” Joel says, standing up, tugging Adam to his feet and looking up at him with a smile. “Catch up, man.”  
  
Adam stares at Joel as Joel collects their coffee, putting Adam’s cup in his free hand, then leading Adam out of the coffeeshop while Joel sips his drink. They get a few feet down the sidewalk before Adam asks “Wait, why haven’t we been fucking?”  
  
“My mattress is on the floor, that’s, c’mon, Adam.”  
  
“Oh.” He pauses. “Well, if that’s all.” He starts tugging Joel toward Adam’s car.  
  
“Adam!” Joel shouts, affronted. “I spilled my coffee on, wait, Adam!”  
  
“I’m catching up!” Adam shouts back. “We’ll wash your hoodie after we fuck, Jesus!”  
  
Joel complains all the way to Adam’s apartment, but he doesn’t stop holding his hand.


End file.
